How much would the harsh realities of Gilead match up with a crime drama set in Los Angeles? One would assume that Hulu’s The Testaments and Apple’s Imperfect Women would be wholly different, but some of the themes are glaringly similar once you take a closer look. In the realm of Marthas, Handmaids, and Plums, two young women connect when the world restricts and frightens them while the death of a close friend tests the limits of loyalty and love in a world more familiar to our own. No matter the setting, Wilkinson brings the emotional truth to the forefront of the drama.
The stark image of a bridge lit up against the night sky is used twice in Imperfect‘s finale. We first see it when we see what happened to Kara Mara’s Nancy at the hands of her killer but Wilkinson uses the same image when the violent scuffle ends the Apple limited series. Wilkinson only directed the finale of this series, so she was delighted to ties all the ends together while never letting any of the tension fall. It’s thrilling to see how Wilkinson takes that kind of feeling of a tense finale and inject it into dialogue-heavy scenes like between Kerry Washington and Sheryl Lee Ralph or between Elisabeth Moss and Corey Stoll.
Wilkinson directed episodes six and seven of the first season of The Testaments, and they couldn’t be any more different. “Stadium” dives even deeper into Aunt Lydia’s past as it shows how trauma is planted inside the body when she makes the decision to tie her allegiances with the burgeoning empire. She and her colleagues are taken from the school where they work and placed into the seats of stadium where they witness executions and humiliation. It’s alarming how we feel the uncertainty and the confusion as none of the armed guards offer any answers. We jump back to the present where Lydia oversees the matchmaking between Gilead’s leaders with the young women eager to start their lives as partners to those in power. It’s like the most fucked up version of The Bachelor that you’ve ever seen.
Episode seven, “Commitment,” is also an entry way into the beginnings of Gilead but from the point of view of Lucy Halliday’s Daisy, who is infiltrating the system on behalf of resistance group, Mayday. Chase Infiniti’s Agnes realizes that the perfect world she has in her head might not match the reality hurtling towards her, and, in a moment of friendship, Agnes shows Daisy the items that she has collected from the outside world that she has no idea what they are. The white, drawstring bag is something that Agnes has never shown anyone, and it reminded me of Ariel from The Little Mermaid inviting us, the audience, to showcase her beloved trinkets. Later, she pines for Brad Alexander’s Garth in the season’s first real moment of longing.
Between these two episodes, it’s impossible to ignore how Wilkinson gets to play in two very specific worlds. Episode six shows the vastness of an empty stadium as fear echoes through the uncertainty of these unprecedented times while episode seven almost celebrates the intimate, controlled environment of Gilead. We go from an open air arena to the drawing rooms of young women who are expected to obey and bend to the will of men. We witness Aunt Lydia’s acceptance of this terrifying world as Agnes soon realizes that what she wants isn’t in the best interest of those in charge.
Imperfect Women is streaming on Apple TV and The Testaments airs episodes weekly on Hulu through May 27.
